Castrato

Cinderella was based on a ghost sighting. I had never heard that before, but it was true.

I was walking through a shopping mall looking for work. When I came out, jobless, I went walking along a street. On one side were fancy houses and the other side was fields and the ocean. As I walked further down the road, the houses became more humble. One was a sofa with a small tent attached. A happy couple waved from the unoccupied part of the sofa. One house was but a windowless cube, barely waist high and smaller than the tent. A guy from my primary school rode by on a motorbike.

The only job going was as a “pizza topping expert” at a pizzeria at the end of this street. I didn’t get the job as I wasn’t sufficiently trained. I was feeling rather down, until I remembered that I have a job already.

I was getting ready to feature in Cinderella, the opera. Martin was in the lead role, as the father, and I was cast as the prince. I didn’t have a costume, and had to hide my New Zealand tshirt by wearing a pair of white overalls. I went looking for the stage door but ended up outside. By mistake I walked down the wheelchair ramp instead of the stairs, wasting more time. It was surfaced with rough cobblestones, and had a step at the bottom. “How much are the cans of Coke?” the ticket vendor asked. I had no idea, and gave a shrug. I went through what I thought was the stage door again, and practiced singing. I had to sing in castrato, but that was fine, my voice was very high and sounded good. If only I knew the script, I thought.